Bulk venders, colloquially known as “gum ball machines”, are widely used for dispensing confectioneries and other small articles of merchandise. A typical bulk vender has a hopper assembly comprising a transparent globe which functions as a merchandise storage bin, seated over a dispensing wheel which revolves in a hopper. A patron deposits the required coinage into the coin mechanism and turns the handle, which rotates the dispensing wheel to convey a preset amount of merchandise to the dispensing chute. The hopper assembly is located over a body which is mounted on a base, defining a secure compartment containing a cash box into which the coin mechanism ejects the deposited coins.
Bulk venders are typically purchased and maintained by vender operators, who install and service the venders at high traffic locations such as shopping malls, restaurants and the like. The operator periodically restocks the venders and collects the proceeds from the sale of articles dispensed by the venders, and typically remits a portion of the proceeds to the owner of the premises. A large vender operator may operate many hundreds of bulk venders, employing service personnel to service the venders and deliver the coins which have accumulated within the cash box to the operator.
Bulk venders are intended particularly for use in unsupervised public areas, and as such are designed to resist tampering, theft and vandalism by patrons. However, since in a conventional bulk vender the number of articles dispensed from each vender is not monitored, so that the vender operator can never know how many coins should be collected from any particular vender during a service call, the operator is highly vulnerable to the theft of coins by the operator's service personnel. The operator can also be vulnerable to the substitution of slugs for coins by service personnel before the collected coins are delivered to the operator.
In either case the operator's proceeds can be significantly reduced. This significantly limits an operator's ability to expand his or her business because the operator is either limited to using only employees known to be trustworthy, or runs the risk of substantial losses due to skimming by employees. Further, this reduces the operator's ability to account to the owner of the premises on which a vender is located, because the operator can never be certain when remitting a portion of the proceeds to the owner of the premises that all monies collected by the vender have been accounted for.
Moreover, because bulk venders are designed for self service by users with minimal maintenance, they are frequently placed in locations where their use cannot be readily supervised. As a result bulk venders are readily susceptible to theft, and when recovered the authorities may have no way of identifying the operator/owner of the vender. Also, occasionally a vender may be abandoned by its operator, or for some reason the operator may have to be notified regarding a problem with the vender, and there is occasionally no easy way to identity the owner of the vender.